Fresh air
by iworkshiplucyh
Summary: Based on the 4 min. promo we got about the 5 years jump, from Aria's perspective. How does she feel when she sees Ezra's book? Does that piece of her old life affect her? ONE-SHOT


**This was written at 1 am with a coffee cup and All Time Low's "Don't panic: It's longer now". So, I expect this to be something marvelous. It is not, but a girl can dream. I resume why I wrote this: 3 days for the new season, an hyperactive mind and an idea. By the way, I'm finishing the new chapter of WTGIG. It is kind of an Ezria story, but I'm still trying to figure out what does that mean right now, because we haven't get a decent/romantic scene with both of them in it for a while, and I have to write according to what we know about the new season.**

 **Let me know what you think about this, with a comment or something. I really appreciate it when you guys write comments.**

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Aria was sitting in the sofa, next to Liam, trying to pay attention to his words. He was talking about some book he had been reading, but she wasn't really listening. Instead, Aria was lost in her own thoughts.

That day, while she was in the library, she had seen it. His book.

After five years, Aria had believed that his memory was buried under all the things she left in Rosewood when she started her life in college. She had thought that she had really forgotten his blue eyes, his perfect jawline and the taste of his lips, bur there they were, those old feelings, all coming at once.

Aria got up, and quickly thought about rustling up an excuse. She just needed time for herself.

-Where are you going? -He frowned, looking at her.

-I want to walk in the breeze, it's a beautiful night, I'm just going to walk around the park. I'll be back in half an hour. -She gave him a quick peck on his lips, barely touching him, and then she took her coat and got out their little apartment. She knew that for Liam that situation hasn't been weird at all. Well, maybe Aria's kind of weird, but he was used to it by then.

She sighted and started walking around. New York surrounded her. She adored the city, and she adored most of the things about her life in that moment.

Why did he had to come and destroy that picture perfect?

-It isn't fair. -She whispered to herself. - Why does he have to come and complicate everything again? -Aria kept on walking.

When she had walked like two thousand meters, she stopped and sat on a bench next to the road. She looked at the tree in front of her, and then she closed her eyes. Then, she let herself evoke his face on her mind.

Five years. Five years had passed since she last saw Ezra's face. Until that exact morning. She had taken a look at the cover of the book and she had known that he was exactly where he wanted to be. He was a writer of exit. He was just thirty and he was famous. His book was a bestseller.

She kept her eyes closed, and she pictured his face. All his factions appeared in front of her. Ezra smiling, then Ezra crying. Ezra being happy, Ezra leaning to give her a kiss on her forehead. Ezra being enthusiasm about a play in Philly's theater. Ezra explaining "To Kill a Mockingbird" in her class. Ezra sat on the floor in his apartment, next to her and eating vegan takeout food while they were talking about something. Ezra and her in his bed, watching a black and white film, that she surprisingly recognized as "It happened one night", their hands slightly touching, her head resting on his shoulder.

She let out every memory she had of him, going through all of them in her mind. She realized that she had kept all of that under control for five years, and now that it was coming back all of a sudden, she needed to let it all out, she needed to let it unwind.

Opening her eyes, she breathed the fresh air of the New York's night. She locked all of those images back in her heart.

\- "Breathe, Aria. He was just your first love and he's not here anymore. You love Liam."-She reminded herself that she was currently in a committed relationship. - "Ezra's not your future, and you need to move on. No, you've already moved on. C'mon, Aria."- With one last deep breath, she got up of the bench and she started walking back home.

She started walking back to a life where nobody judged her for dating her teacher. She walked back to a life where no one tortured her. She walked back to a comfortable zone, where she was her adult self, where Liam was waiting. A life where she had made herself, a life where she was a successful publisher, a business woman, where she could be whatever she wanted to be.

She walked back to a perfect life. To a life she considered perfect. But, half way there, she stopped walking again, breathlessly. And she remembered something that made her reconsider what she was doing.

Ezra was there thought everything and she left him. She was to blame, and she hadn't even called to congratulate him about his book. Her life wasn't perfect, it was just an illusion she had made, a photograph she had taken in her mind of something perfect that wasn't actually all that she expected to be.

But she wanted all to be perfect in her new life, as much as Ezra wanted to.

-"That's why he let me go."- She finally understood it all after five years.- "He wanted me to have the perfect life I wanted even though it meant letting me go."-

After lying to herself for five years, that realization made her see everything differently. And as she started walking again, cleaning some tears that had formed unconsciously in her eyes, Aria thought one last thing.

This time, she was going to fight to find a real life, not a perfect and idealized one. Liam wasn't a prince, her work wasn't what she really wanted to be and New York city wasn't her home. But she knew what she had to do. All the ways leaded back to Rosewood.


End file.
